Koeman faces fight to keep unsettled Sadio Mane at Southampton

Sought-after 23-year-old dropped from trip to Norwich for loss of focus and
poor timekeeping

Mane man: Southampton forward Sadio Mane has been linked with a January exit from St Mary'sPhoto: REX

By Jon Culley

10:30PM GMT 03 Jan 2016

Ronald Koeman admits he faces his toughest challenge as Southampton manager with a potential stand-off with unsettled star Sadio Mane adding to the Dutchman’s worries.

Koeman, who guided the Saints to seventh place in the Premier League in his first season in charge, dropped Mane to the bench at Carrow Road after the 23-year-old Senegal international turned up late for his pre-match team meeting.

Koeman took a hard line with Mane after revealing he had given him a dressing down only last Thursday over “not being focussed” in training amid speculation linking him with a January move to Manchester United, and must now decide whether to take further action.

Koeman also saw Victor Wanyama sent off for a “stupid” tackle that earned him a second yellow card as Southampton slid to a sixth defeat in eight Premier League matches, a run that has seen them fall from seventh to 13th in the table.

“It is the most difficult situation [I have faced] until now, of course,” Koeman said. “Everything was going well, we had a lot of positive critics. That was the message to the players – it is so easy when everything is going well but now we have to keep togetherness. That is what I expect and that is not what we showed today.”

The 52-year-old is normally calm and measured in his post-match analysis but on this occasion was visibly angry. He became most exasperated when asked if he felt Mane’s attitude was linked with the opening of the January window. “Ask him,” he demanded. “Ask him really why. Ask him – I don’t know.”

He made it clear that he attached substantial blame to Mane and Wanyama for the defeat, sealed when Alex Tettey guided home a left-foot shot just two minutes and 20 seconds after Wanyama was sent off for bringing down Norwich substitute Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe.

Wanyama, himself linked with Tottenham and Arsenal, has since apologised for his red card on social media. “It was reckless and irresponsible,” he said.

Seeing red: Victor Wanyama is sent off against Norwich

Koeman must now decide whether he should forgive Mane, whose timekeeping has been an issue before, or follow the example of Tony Pulis, the West Bromwich Albion manager, who has not named Saido Berahino in his starting line-up for more than two months after concluding that the striker had lost his focus after being denied a move to Tottenham last summer.

“I will talk to the board, talk to the players,” he said. “But I need one day to take my mind off it.”

Should Mane be sold, Southampton would make a sizeable profit on the £11.8 million they paid Club Brugge for him in 2014 but would be going against Koeman’s assertion that no players would be leaving in January after two consecutive summers of cashing in on their biggest assets.

Only last week, Koeman – twice a European Cup winner as a player and three times a title-winner in Holland as a coach – hinted that he would leave St Mary’s if there were no change of policy. “I hate to stay in a situation where there is no ambition,” he said.

Dutch courage: Koeman faces a battle to keep his most wanted players

Ironically, as Koeman revealed during the course of his rant on Saturday, it had been made clear only on Friday that the club does have ambition in a speech to the players by chairman Ralph Krueger. “It was a great talk about the club, the team, about the respect, the ambition, the spirit, focus, concentration,” Koeman said.

Mane, who has seven goals this season, would have been central to that ambition. But, as Liverpool discovered with Raheem Sterling last summer, it is increasingly difficult to keep a player who wants to be somewhere else.